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Khalid Saeed speaks at the 9/11 commemoration ceremony:
Excerpts from his speech and message:
AMV Foundation would like to publicly honor and extend our deepest gratitude to all of you for your unwavering support of our vision. Our fellow Americans have stood behind us since our inaugural events, which aimed to bridge the cultural and social gap between communities. We strongly believe that in order to build peace, we must shatter all barriers, get to know each other and form friendships.
We can build stronger and harmonious communities and safe and secure nations. Our faith partners and diverse community organizations have shared our belief and watched us grow into an organization that is truly making this belief a reality. Now on the eve of such a profoundly evocative date, we are thrilled to have your support again for our event, “From Fear to Friendship: In Loving Memory of 9/11 Victims”. We are honoring the victims, their families and first responders here on our American soil as we aim to heal wounds and foster friendships.
AMV Foundation also wants to shed light on how deeply this tragedy affected American Muslims. Before 9/11, we weaved seamlessly into the multicultural American tapestry. We were engineers and teachers, lawyers and entrepreneurs, political figures and so on. We were happy to be Americans chasing or fulfilling our dreams and enjoying the freedoms our Constitution grants us.
After 9/11, we were still engineers and teachers, lawyers and entrepreneurs, political figures and so on, but we suddenly found ourselves painted with a wide brush of fear and hatred. Suddenly, we weren’t seen as the friendly bank teller who greeted you at the end of a hard work week but as the worst kind of villain, someone capable of mass destruction and murder when nothing in our personal history had ever previously suggested a predisposition for evil. Suddenly we were not teachers who inspired America’s children but radical extremists bent on pushing jihad, when so few of our fellow Americans even knew what the term meant. This ignorance has been running rampant since 9/11. It has divided our country and proliferated hate.
We were hurt politically too. In election 2000 over 700 Muslim made a bid in the political arena from school Boards to the congress. In election 2002 there were less than hundred. In election 2006 the 1st Muslim Congressman from Minnesota was elected because he reached out to all Americans and they got to know him.
This is why American Muslim Voice Foundation exists: to restore faith in humanity in the face of tragedy, to build stronger relationships based on friendships so that we can put back the “United” in United States of America, and to build a peaceful, inclusive and beloved world.
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